For the last few years, I have focused on booking rental condos and Airbnbs when I travel with my family. It’s not that I don’t love hotels anymore because I do; it’s that I don’t like sleeping in a room with my kids.
My youngest one kicks around the bed and makes noise all night. My oldest likes to get out of bed at like 6:00 a.m. and stare at me until I wake up. In the rare instance I want to sleep in a little bit, they make me listen to annoying cartoons while I try to snooze. They also ask if it’s time for breakfast a gazillion times. I love my kids, but geez! I prefer not to wake up before sunrise every day.
With rental condos, on the other hand, everything is different since my husband and I can actually sleep. We can tell our oldest child to turn on some TV in the morning until we wake up on our own. She still busts into our room to wake us up around half the time, but it’s less frequent and easier to handle when I wasn’t woken up all night. Things aren’t perfect, but they’re getting better.
How We Save on Rental Condos
Still, there’s a major problem — it’s a lot harder to book rental condos with rewards. It’s not impossible though, which is good since I don’t want to pay our many, many rental condos with cash. Here are the strategies I use to book condos with points.
Using Flexible Travel Credit
Since I still have the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite MasterCard, I focus a ton of spending here so I can use these points for random travel expenses. This card earns 2x points for every dollar you spend, and since it earns “flexible travel credit,” you can use the points for travel expenses over $100. I have had great luck with this card, and I have redeemed points for both rental condos and a cruise.
While this particular credit card isn’t currently available, you could do the same thing with the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card. This card offers 2x “miles” for every dollar you spend, then lets you redeem it for any travel expense you want. You also get a 50,000 mile signup bonus worth $500 in travel after you sign up and use your card for $3,000 in purchases within three months of account opening.
Redeeming your rewards with this card is easy. Just make sure you book a rental condo that will code as travel on your credit card statement and you can redeem your points to cover the expense.
Paying with Chase Ultimate Rewards
Another option I always consider when I’m booking a condo is Chase Ultimate Rewards. While there are mostly hotels in the Chase travel portal, there are often hotels with suites and rental condos thrown in the mix, too.
I’ve used points to book two-bedroom condos in both Barcelona and Madrid via Chase Ultimate Rewards, and I even got 50% more travel because I used points with my Chase Sapphire Reserve card.
While there’s no guarantee your destination will have rental condos bookable through Chase Ultimate Rewards, you can always check to see if any are available and if they’re a good deal.
Do you prefer hotels or condos? What is your favorite way to use rewards?
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